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On the Dangers and Potential Abuses of DNA Familial Searching
Advocatus Diaboli sends a story of how a high tech forensic procedure almost led investigators to the wrong person. In 1996, a young woman named Angie Dodge was assaulted and murdered in Idaho Falls, Idaho. There was a conviction in the case, but later reports claimed the wrong man was in prison, and police thought there were more than one attacker anyway. This eventually led to the re-opening of the investigation. Using DNA evidence that had been preserved from the crime scene, police used a controversial technique called familial searching to try to find a lead. This method is used when there is no direct DNA match within the available databases. Instead, it tries to identify family members of the suspect. Police found a partial match, which eventually led them to Michael Usry, a New Orleans filmmaker. They convinced a judge to provide a search warrant to extract Usry's DNA and test it against the sample. It wasn't until a month after the extraction that they told him he'd been cleared.
assaulted and murdered? Isn't that a bit redundant? I mean, how do you murder someone without physically attacking them? durrrr
No mistake was made. The police checked a potential suspect and cleared him.
So, they got a warrant like they're supposed to.
Then they executed the warrant, gathered a DNA sample, and tested it.
Sample came back as not matching, so they removed the suspect from their list of suspects.
So, what's the problem here? They checked out a lead (using legal methods, like a warrant), found it went nowhere, and continued the investigation into other possible leads....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
There are reasonable arguments against this sort of thing, but the fact that it led to an investigation of an individual who was subsequently cleared isn't one of them. If the police already knew who did it they wouldn't have to investigate anyone.
Odds are one of them is the culprit. Better safe than sorry!
They identified a suspect based on evidence and eliminated him using evidence.
How is that abuse?
Just because someones DNA was found at a crime scene doesn't mean they were there at the time of the crime or even that they were ever there. There have been enough cases forensics Labs accidentally contaminating evidence never mind the fact that even today DNA finger prints aren't that unique. Basically it should only ever be used as corroborating evidence.
Tell that to the parents of a serial killer's victims. I suspect having your child brutally murdered is a bigger inconvenience than what this guy went through.
Ah yes, the classic "one crime deserves another" argument. Well done, sir. Surely beating down the doors of houses with battering rams is less of an inconvenience than being brutally murdered. Therefore by your logic, police shall go door to door with battering rams in every city that has an unsolved brutal murder. With your flawless logic, we shall protect everyone by rummaging through all of their possessions and taking DNA samples from them.
Well done. Bravo.
So can someone explain to me why the FBI has carte blanche to run searches through the Ancestry.com database? It says they had a court order to reveal the name, but apparently no court order was necessary to do the check, why is that?
Ah yes, the classic "one crime deserves another" argument.
No, it is the classic "one crime deserves citizens who provide reasonable assistance to pursue justice." If I find a murdered body while jogging, I am probably going to be one of the initial suspects. I will be questioned by officers, and possibly even called back to the precinct if they have further questions. This would absolutely inconvenience me, but I would be a real jackass if I put up a stink about it. Someone was just murdered, which would be a much bigger problem than me losing a couple afternoons.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
If I find a murdered body while jogging, I am probably going to be one of the initial suspects. I will be questioned by officers, and possibly even called back to the precinct if they have further questions. This would absolutely inconvenience me, but I would be a real jackass if I put up a stink about it. Someone was just murdered, which would be a much bigger problem than me losing a couple afternoons.
And it is of the outmost importance that you keep the freedom to make that choice.
Forth amendment?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".
emt 377 emt 4
As relevant to the modern world as the second amendment, just as obsolete and just as embarrassing. We're living in the 21st Century, not the 18th. Let go of the old ways, embrace the new.
If the governments had the courage to do it, every citizen or resident of the country should be compelled to give DNA samples. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for any ordinary citizen to protest or oppose this. Indeed any opposition should be viewed as a reason for suspicion.
Because of course there is absolutely no chance for abuse, such as DNA planting, or error, such as cross-contamination.
Which as much as an "art" as a tested science. In situtations of a partial fingerprint there are fewer characteristics to match a database. And they have been incorrect in the past as in the case of the Oregon lawyer mistaken for a Spanish terrorist. Although you may be given the broad odds of a mismatch, I wonder what if there have been actual studies. For example, randomly reduce fingerprint caharacteristics until there are multiple partial matches and see if any are correct.
That could be said for any investigative technique. Simpletons said the same about CCTV but now no sane person would deny the benefits of video surveillance. It *works*. It helps *reducing crime*. Those are cold facts. We need to slay that last sacred cow and make another step towards a safer society. And it will happen, whether you want it or not.
The "(un)reasonable" standard is so vague, almost anything can be argued in and out of it.
The anonymous grandparent is right in that DNA-samples (and fingerprints) could be collected from everyone, and it would help police immensely.
The question then boils down to whether we want the police helped so much. More generally, do we want 100% of crimes to be reliably solvable, or would we rather some criminals remained able to escape today in exchange for it being possible (however remotely) for some future subversives to succeed against some hypothetically oppressive government, which would have already illegalized all ordinary methods of opposition?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Another? What was the second crime here? That the police investigated the first crime? There was no second crime.
I understand your argument that a database of DNA raises privacy concerns. It's something that has been discussed many times here already.
Did the police then remove the innocent citizen's DNA record from all databases it was entered into against said innocent citizen's will?
If not does:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
have any real value in protecting our personal liberty?
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
I would think that use of FORTH would fall under the first amendment.
Despite one of the highest densities of CCTV systems in the western world, statistics in the UK have shown that CCTV system has little if any impact on crime rates. And many incidents here in the US (Michael DeHererra Beating, Hollwood FL framing, LAPD equipment "malfunctions", etc) have proven that those in authority can and will damage, destroy, modify and/or edit the footage if it shows them behaving immorally/illegally.
I'd personally keep moving and never say a word to anybody. (This is assuming the guy is obviously dead.) As a mere passerby, I'd be of little help in actually solving the case, but as you've already described, I'd be putting myself at risk for doing so. Little to no upside, and unlimited downside (worst case being they accuse me). No thanks.
Now if my personal account would actually facilitate the solving of the case, then I might consider reporting the crime. Still, I would have to weigh the downside against the upside. That's only prudent living under a government which, as history has shown, puts the business of government first, and justice second. As government grows more powerful with each passing year, the chance of me volunteering myself to government for anything is reduced accordingly.
Atleast you won't go away for nothing.
Kill your enemies.
Even calling this circumstantial evidence was a massive stretch, they didn't have any evidence he knew the victim, had no evidence he had ever been to the state in over a decade, no history of violence. Just a probable familial match that turned out to be not so probable. A judge with any sense should have balked at the request, but unfortunately the days of judges who questioned prosecutors/police are long gone.
DNA fingerprinting isn't completely unique. Now when used the normal way, testing someone who has come under suspicions for other reasons, a match may be unlikely enough that it has evidential value. But when the you reverse the process ("get me anyone in the country who matches this DNA whether we have any reason to suspect them or not"), there's a good chance of going after an innocent party as that group is going to have a number of people in it, all but one of whom is innocent.
So you have no problem with the police stopping by your house to search and inventory everything you own. And make copies of all your documents, including bank and credit card statements and have your computer, tablet, and phone back up to their servers regularly.
"but no police officer should ever be disappointed to find out a suspect is innocent"
I think you need a little dose of reality. The purpose of the police is to protect society, mostly from people who do illegal things but sometimes from unfortunate circumstances. In the case of people who do illegal things you want the police to identify and possibly apprehend the person as quickly and efficiently as possible so they can continue on with getting the next miscreant. While it is a relief that the wrong person was identified as a suspect and then exonerated it is also, at the same time, disapointing that the effort to do this was in effect spent on the wrong person and not spent on catching the real culprit. It is possible to be relieved and disappointed about the same event at the same time.
As an aside I don't really care how the police felt as long as they did the correct thing, investigating suspects, exonerating the innocent and catching the guilty.
If I find a murdered body while jogging, I am probably going to be one of the initial suspects. I will be questioned by officers, and possibly even called back to the precinct if they have further questions. This would absolutely inconvenience me, but I would be a real jackass if I put up a stink about it. Someone was just murdered, which would be a much bigger problem than me losing a couple afternoons.
And it is of the outmost importance that you keep the freedom to make that choice.
No I should absolutely not be given the legal ability to impede an investigation just because I don't feel like helping out. You can't force someone to report the dead body, but once the police have identified you as a potential suspect or key witness I am obliged to comply with the judicial system. I cannot ignore a subpoena just because I don't want to miss work.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Your statistics are either wrong or biased. As for the US situation, you're a corrupt nation beyond redemption. We Europeans are superior, and that's why we have order under law and you do not. :-)
It is more like searching an existing database, such as finger prints for close matches then proving the match with more up to date reference sample.
No I should absolutely not be given the legal ability to impede an investigation just because I don't feel like helping out. You can't force someone to report the dead body, but once the police have identified you as a potential suspect or key witness I am obliged to comply with the judicial system. I cannot ignore a subpoena just because I don't want to miss work.
To clarify, you would be legally obliged to comply, but certainly not morally obliged.
In addition, there are various legal jurisdictions around the world where it indeed would be a crime to not report the dead body to the police. Again, this duty is a legal one, not an ethical one.
But the police have a responsibility to treat you as innocent until proven guilty. If they haul you down to the station 10 times without prior notice, use their search warrant to ransack your house and destroy your property, and do so in front of TV cameras, ruining your reputation and potentially causing you great financial harm in lost job/business, who wouldn't say "screw the dead guy, I have to worry about myself first".
On TV, the police are never respectful of suspects (except the rich ones, of course). Hopefully hollywood gets that as wrong as they get the laws of physics, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Well, this is one of those questions that has a few big fat "depends" attached to the answer.
If they were just going to throw away that information, I unqualifiedly agree with you. No reasonable person would refuse to give their DNA if it would be thrown away as soon as it had exonerated them.
But what if they intend to *keep* that information and use it to match against future crimes? Then a reasonable person might well pause. One obvious uncertainty is what future versions of the government considers a "crime". Even if I have total trust in the "deep state" under President Obama, I should recognize others might reasonably feel differently, and nobody should feel such a level of trust for future administrations yet to be determined.
Possibly a more serious issue is our assumptions about the perfection of matching DNA samples against vast archives of DNA data. The FBI likes to claim literally astronomical chances like "113 billion to 1" against a false positive DNA match, but they're not exactly disinterested. Furthermore such figures are based on long strings of untested assumptions about things being statistically independent of each other. While it's manifestly clear that false matches are unlikely, we cannot really know whether they are sufficiently likely to treat as positive proof when we're talking about matching against potentially millions of samples.
So while it's quite reasonable not to be worried about what happens with your biometric data today, it's maybe not so reasonable to be so casual about having it retained and aggregated for decades to come. Keeping data without really testing it's future utility (or even disutility) is something bureaucracies do by habit and instinct, and people with the skepticism and mathematical knowledge to be entrusted with such a decision are few and far between.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The inclusion of "papers" in the fourth amendment implies the protection of privacy, not just physical possession, and is parallel to DNA. Even before photocopies and data backups, "secure", when applied to "papers", obviously refers to the risk of disclosure of information without the owner's consent more than it does to the loss of that information. After all, truly important papers could have been manually copied and stored separately even in 1776.
And did you miss the first item on the list: "persons". Our constitution recognizes our bodies themselves and most immediate physical possessions as the first and most important thing the government should respect. Getting the DNA from a database somewhere rather than collecting it from the suspect should make no difference. We should be able to expect our own government to exercise reasonable respect for our privacy and act outside of the wishes of the obvious data owner only after getting a warrant to do so.
Michael Usry Sr. was ONLY ONE ALLELE away from going to jail for the rest of his life!!
His father is the case you should be thinking about.
You think they would have paid attention to any alibi short of him being on live national TV or in prison at the time of the murder?
Part of the "validity" of DNA matching is that it is generally used as a method of confirmation: "Bob was seen have having an argument with the victim 20 hours before the body was found, He was having an affair with the victim's wife, there is only one chance in three billion that a random stranger has the same DNA profile...."
This is vastly different from collect and type the DNA. look in some databases. Then prove the person did the deed! .
To clarify, you would be legally obliged to comply, but certainly not morally obliged.
In addition, there are various legal jurisdictions around the world where it indeed would be a crime to not report the dead body to the police. Again, this duty is a legal one, not an ethical one.
Well, I contend that you are morally obliged to comply and assist in both situations, but concede my moral viewpoint is not universally held. I didn't know that not reporting a crime was a crime though, although since I would have already felt morally obliged I guess it wouldn't have affected me.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
People would be more willing to cooperate if doing so wasn't so frequently punished even when you're innocent.
Law enforcement and our 'justice system' need to drill it into their skulls that unless they are very careful, the process of investigating and ultimately finding a person not guilty is itself an ordeal that amounts to punishment of the innocent.
It's no wonder people prefer to be left out of it rather than cooperate.
Given news footage I have seen of someone's house after a search (which turned out to be based on an anonymous tip), I'd say TV has it right. They ripped sheet rock from the walls, destroyed furniture, and spread the insides of their mattresses over the floor. They didn't even apologize when it was over.
The statistics are tricky there. The odds against a perfect false match to a particular bit of evidence are quite high. The odds of a false familial match against a degraded sample from ANY crime scene are quite different. I can't imagine why anyone would want to effectively sign up to be a go-to suspect.
I'm reminded of the 'serial killer' who raged across Europe for many years. It turned out that the DNA of the 'serial killer' was actually from the woman who packaged the cotton swabs.
It also turned out that they bought sterile swabs meant for medical use, but not swabs clear of DNA meant for forensic investigation.
Forth amendment?
"The right of the people to use stack-based languages."
My point is this: how do we *know* the odds against a perfect false match are as high as we think they are?
I know the way people do these calculations, which is they take p(x1) * p(x2) *... p(xn) as the probability. But note that the validity of this calculation is dependent upon the assumption that the events x1, x2 ... xn are all independent of each other, which if you think about what DNA is is bound not to be true. So I guess you choose x1 ... xn so that they are independent-ish -- that is to say they are correlated to only a negligible degree.
But how do you know that? Well, you look through some existing databases that is representative enough of the population at large to choose which points of comparison to use.
But how do you know that database is sufficiently representative?
The problem is, you don't. It's just an unfounded assumption.
I have no doubt that you'd have sufficient Bayesian basis for a high degree of belief in a match once you've narrowed your pool of suspects to a group of otherwise likely suspects. But I'm not nearly so confident in a so-called "perfect match" (which is really misleading terminology by the way) when the pool of suspects is *everybody*.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, that's essentially wordplay: technically, you ARE legally obliged to comply with the judicial system.
However, is the judicial system morally fair?
If you ever travel to Saudi Arabia with your wife, do you consider it fair to physically beat her because she may disagree with you?
Do you consider it morally right that a 12 year old girl can be married off?
Do you think the Patriot Act is morally right?
What about when US telco's broke the law and were granted retroactive immunity by the President, making it legal. Is that morally right?
Do you think racial segregation was right? Women not allowed to vote? Slaves in ancient times?!
Just because something is LAW doesn't make it RIGHT.
There is, in fact, evidence that your concerns are well founded. I wish I had a reference for it but the research demonstrated an uncomfortable likelihood that a search against a large pool of DNA profiles would nearly inevitably return several false matches.
And that was before considering that few DNA samples are perfect in the first place.
A lot of people would have a lot less confidence in DNA matches if they knew that really only a tiny sampling of the DNA's characteristics are spot checked for a match. They definitely do not match them up codon by codon like many people imagine.
That could be said for any investigative technique. Simpletons said the same about CCTV but now no sane person would deny the benefits of video surveillance. It *works*. It helps *reducing crime*. Those are cold facts. We need to slay that last sacred cow and make another step towards a safer society. And it will happen, whether you want it or not.
I'm not arguing against DNA testing, moron. I'm arguing against compulsory collection of DNA samples from every resident of the country as the OP claimed that there was "absolutely no reason whatsoever to oppose this." If you want to compare to CCTV, that would be equivalent to requiring every resident to have a camera recording their movements 24/7.
This is the important part I think.
Ah yes, the classic "one crime deserves another" argument.
No, it is the classic "one crime deserves citizens who provide reasonable assistance to pursue justice." If I find a murdered body while jogging, I am probably going to be one of the initial suspects. I will be questioned by officers, and possibly even called back to the precinct if they have further questions. This would absolutely inconvenience me, but I would be a real jackass if I put up a stink about it. Someone was just murdered, which would be a much bigger problem than me losing a couple afternoons.
Yeah, you will be one of the initial suspects. and once the cops get it into your head that you're the culprit, it doesn't get erased easily. after that they're searching for evidence to convict you, not to exonerate you.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
There is, in fact, evidence that your concerns are well founded. I wish I had a reference for it but the research demonstrated an uncomfortable likelihood that a search against a large pool of DNA profiles would nearly inevitably return several false matches.
And that was before considering that few DNA samples are perfect in the first place.
A lot of people would have a lot less confidence in DNA matches if they knew that really only a tiny sampling of the DNA's characteristics are spot checked for a match. They definitely do not match them up codon by codon like many people imagine.
deja vu all over again
"Latent print examiners have long claimed that fingerprint identification is "infallible." 1' The claim is widely believed by the general public, as evidenced by the publicity generated by the Mayfield and Cowans cases, with newspaper headlines like "Despite Its Reputation, Fingerprint Evidence Isn't Really Infallible.' 12 Curiously, the claim even appears to survive exposed cases of error, which would seem to puncture the claim of infallibility.'" Such cases have been known since as early as 1920 and have not disturbed the myth of infallibility.' 4 Today, latent print examiners continue to defend the claim of infallibility, even in the wake of the Mayfield case.' 5 For example, Agent Massey commented in a story on the Mayfield case, "I'll preach fingerprints till I die. They're infallible. 16 Another examiner declared, in a discussion of the Mayfield case, "Fingerprints are absolute and infallible."' 17 http://scholarlycommons.law.no...
"The rhetoric of infallibility proved helpful in establishing the admissibility of forensic DNA tests and persuading judges and jurors of its epistemic authority.7 It has also played an important role in the promotion of government DNA databases. Innocent people have nothing to fear from databases, promoters claim. Because the tests are infallible, the risk of a false incrimination must necessarily be nil. One indication of the success and influence of the rhetoric of infallibility is that, until quite recently, concerns about false incriminations played almost no role in debates about database expansion. The infallibility of DNA tests has, for most purposes, become an accepted fact-one of the shared assumptions underlying the policy debate.
In this article, I will argue that this shared assumption is wrong. Although generally quite reliable (particularly in comparison with other forms of evidence often used in criminal trials), DNA tests are not now and have never been infallible. Errors in DNA testing occur regularly. DNA evidence has caused false incriminations and false convictions, and will continue to do so. Although DNA tests incriminate the correct person in the great majority of cases, the risk of false incrimination is high enough to deserve serious consideration in debates about expansion of DNA databases. The risk of false incrimination is borne primarily by individuals whose profiles are included in government databases (and perhaps by their relatives). Because there are racial, ethnic and class disparities in the composition of databases, the risk of false incrimination will fall disproportionately on members of the included groups.8,9" http://www.councilforresponsib...
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~mue...
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Forth amendment?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".
On the other hand, post somewhere that you don't think torture is justified even in the proverbial ticking bomb case, and see what Americans really think of the civil rights of anybody except themselves.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I bet you can also whistle while you touch your toes
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I think most telling was a test where a group of fingerprint analysts was given a fair number of samples to analyse. Some of them were duplicates. The finding was that they not only disagreed with each other, they sometimes unknowingly disagreed with themselves.